Lejeune Marine awarded Silver Star

Cpl. Christian A. Brown, second from left, receives a Silver Star award from Brig. Gen. James A. Lukeman, right, Friday aboard Camp Lejeune. Six days before losing both of his legs to an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan, Brown performed actions under enemy fire that led to him being awarded the Silver Star.

John Althouse/Jacksonville Daily News

By Thomas Brennan, Jacksonville Daily News

Published: Monday, May 6, 2013 at 06:21 PM.

CAMP LEJEUNE— Six days before losing both of his legs to an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan, Cpl. Christian Brown performed actions under enemy fire that led to him being awarded the Silver Star last week.

“It feels good to be home — I consider (Camp Lejeune) home,” Brown said after the ceremony. “... A lot of my younger Marines are here leading Marines, and I get to see a lot of myself in them. It’s humbling to be around the guys that can still serve.

“I wasn’t ready to take my uniform off.”

Brown was awarded the Silver Star on Friday for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity for his actions on Dec. 7, 2011, in Kajaki, Afghanistan. The award citation credits Brown for carrying a Marine casualty more than 300 meters under heavy volumes of enemy fire so the wounded Marine could be evacuated. Brown is the 42nd Marine to receive the Silver Star for heroic actions in Afghanistan.

“This is surreal,” said Brown. “It’s a great feeling. I’m surrounded by family, friends and all these great young men out here. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Although, he said, receiving the award is bittersweet.

“For anyone to get something like (the Silver Star) it usually takes something bad to happen,” Brown said. “And being a Marine thinking about things you ask how you could have done it better. ...I’m honored to have it, but at the end of the day, I was just doing my job and trying to bring my buddies home.”

CAMP LEJEUNE— Six days before losing both of his legs to an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan, Cpl. Christian Brown performed actions under enemy fire that led to him being awarded the Silver Star last week.

“It feels good to be home — I consider (Camp Lejeune) home,” Brown said after the ceremony. “... A lot of my younger Marines are here leading Marines, and I get to see a lot of myself in them. It’s humbling to be around the guys that can still serve.

“I wasn’t ready to take my uniform off.”

Brown was awarded the Silver Star on Friday for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity for his actions on Dec. 7, 2011, in Kajaki, Afghanistan. The award citation credits Brown for carrying a Marine casualty more than 300 meters under heavy volumes of enemy fire so the wounded Marine could be evacuated. Brown is the 42nd Marine to receive the Silver Star for heroic actions in Afghanistan.

“This is surreal,” said Brown. “It’s a great feeling. I’m surrounded by family, friends and all these great young men out here. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Although, he said, receiving the award is bittersweet.

“For anyone to get something like (the Silver Star) it usually takes something bad to happen,” Brown said. “And being a Marine thinking about things you ask how you could have done it better. ...I’m honored to have it, but at the end of the day, I was just doing my job and trying to bring my buddies home.”

It was truly an emotional day, said Brown’s mother, Lyn Braden-Reed.

“It means a lot of things to me,” said Braden-Reed, 46, of Munford, Tenn. “I’m extremely proud of him and I have been extremely proud of him his whole life so that hasn’t changed. It’s just incredible what Marines and all the service members do over there. For him to be recognized for going above and beyond — I couldn’t be more proud.”

Hearing the citation, she said the actions that unfolded that day are in her son’s character.

“He’s been a go-getter since he was a little boy,” Braden-Reed said. “If he sees something he is going to accomplish, he makes it happen. If his mission was to get his Marine out of there, he was going to do it and nothing was going to stop him.”

At the beginning of the ceremony, Braden-Reed watched her son stand up out of his wheelchair onto his prostheses and said he can do so because of his determination and drive. She also said it brought back painful memories of finding out her son was wounded.

“When you get that phone call, it’s the worst time in your life,” said Braden-Reed. “You don’t want to get that phone call. You dread that phone call from the minute they leave on deployment. You think that it’s possible, but in the back of your head, you say it’s not going to happen to him. It did happen to him. ...For him to come from where he was when he first got wounded to where he is now is just truly amazing, and I am beyond proud of everything he has accomplished.”

Brown was the second Camp Lejeune Marine to receive the Silver Star last week. Staff Sgt. Daniel Ridgeway was awarded the Silver Star last Tuesday for heroic actions in Afghanistan on June 18, 2011.

Brown said the reason he performed such heroic actions that December day is because you live, eat, breathe and sleep with these guys 24/7. They become extended family, Brown said.

“I’d do it even if I knew the outcome — if I knew the outcome was losing my legs,” he said. “... I would have to say I’d always do it all over again no matter what.”